The DanMan

So the "best friend" bit was speculation. O-kay.

Definitely haven't heard that before. Hate to be that guy, but source?

I agree with it having something to do with Aqua... if it even exists. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but not every Fire Emblem game has had something named after the titular artifact in it, right? EDIT: Beaten to the last bit.

No, not in the least. As I said in the general discussion, it's probably doesn't signify anything except maybe some staff changes. If anything, it could just be Porcupine the First's death scene that bumped it up; Japan isn't a fan of violence. For example, every single game in the Monster Hunter series has received a Cero C15+. (And here's some trivia: when FE4 was re-released on the JP virtual console, it received a Cero A, equivalent to the "E" rating.)

The return of the magic triangle. Plus more magical weapons, and have them participate in the magic triangle, thus increasing the mechanic's significance outside of mage vs mage. As others are saying, an intriguing plot with a theme of gray morality would be nice. Also, give us a few central characters that are fleshed out and developed over the course of the story. And on top of that, give Kamui more of a character. Fewer, higher-quality support conversations. Less fanservice. (T̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶C̶a̶m̶i̶l̶l̶a̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶t̶t̶y̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶p̶i̶e̶c̶e̶s̶.) No S-supports, or have them function the same as A supports in previous games. Better map design; most of Awakening's were "big plain with a couple clusters of trees and maybe a fort or a bridge". This.

Leon? ...Leon. I like it. I̶n̶B̶4̶ ̶R̶e̶s̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶E̶v̶i̶l̶ ̶j̶o̶k̶e̶s̶. I'm thinking something like this. My bet's on him being the Jeigan of the Nohr path.

For the longest time, I didn't know that the game forecast the battle results when you started to engage the enemy; I just went through it without second thought.

Yeah; the second paragraph was mostly me spitballing and theorizing. I still hope we'll see more elemental weapons and the magic triangle return. True. Yet, we still know little about the game's mechanics. The merging part was definitely me going overboard, though. Yet what harm lies in theorizing, as long as you don't get too invested in your theories?

So, something I (and many other people, for that matter) have noticed: during the scene in the April trailer with the two armies clashing, both Marx's and Ryouma's swords are giving off certain effects. Ryouma's katana is crackling with white lightning, while Marx's greatsword has, well, a miniature cloud of foggy darkness rolling off of it. Coupled with the "firestick" (for lack of a better name) used by Rinka in the first trailer, I'm begining to wonder if we will not only see the return of the magic triangle, but also it's expansion into a full-on "elemental triangle" that involves physical weapons as well. Here's my theory: each element of magic is effective against different units. For example, on top of wind devastating fliers, say thunder is effective against armored units (because metal conducts electricity, and they're wearing hulking suits of armor) and dragons (because Radiant Dawn did it). Not sure what fire could be effective against though. So, say you could "merge" a tome and a melee weapon; the melee weapon would get a boost in damage from that tome depending on how powerful it is; arcfire would give more than elfire, and alot more than fire. That damage boost wouldn't be that massive, however; I'm thinking matching weapon ranks (i.e. arcifre on steel sword, bolganone on silver sword) the boost would be less than 50% strength, to mantain balance. In addition, the part of the attack boosted by said weapon would be able to deal tripled damage on targets that the element is effective against, in addition to providing the boosts/penalties of the magic triangle when matched against mages. Alternatively, instead of a convoluted merging mechaninc, there are just melee weapons out there that do elementel damage and exist within the magic triangle; we've already got the levin sword and wind edge from RD that could be re-tooled to function like that. Or I'm just overanlyzing things big-time, and Marx's and Ryouma's swords are like that in cutscenes 'cause they're superpoweredancientartifacts or some crap like that. The elemental weapons concept has been a headcannon of mine for some time, and I just find it intriguing that we could see something similiar to it implented in FEif. So, what do you think of the concept? Cool idea that could help balance out the OP-ness of magic in Awakening? Or just a flashy day-dream that would never be implemented?

Physical. Unless they put Camilla's artwork on the back of the box and it's more than waist up (I REALLY don't want to look at it more than I absolutely have to). Also, for those who plan to download, Awakening was 1.05 gigabytes, so expect something similiar. And an interesting note while I'm at it: 3DS carts are available in 4 and 8 gigabyte versions to developers; the later is rarely ever needed, however. Since Awakening is only a tad over one gigabyte, and a good chunk of that is the game engine, mechanics, and such, both routes should be under two gigabytes combined.

Seconded.

Agreed. I don't see why they would "need" to change it or anything.

I'm not psyched for what's basically on-cart DLC, as minor as it may be. Hopefully it's just something small, like Hyrule Warriors.

CERO is more an industry standard (like the ESRB), and not a government ratings board (like PEGI). It's quite possible that they've just had some staff changes, resulting in more prudish ratings. Haven't a lot of JRPGs from series that are historically B12+ been getting C15+?

I'd peg my liking of Shadow Dragon as first game syndrome, mostly. I actually know quite a bit about the other games in the series; FE7 is at the top of my list, though. I very well may get a Wii U for Xenoblade X, so I'd nab it alongside that.

Salvete, amicos! I'm a lurker of two years who finally decided to make an account and join. I'm a high school student, nerd, and pastor's son. My history with this series goes back to about 2006. My family was strict on videogames, and besides a N64 my dad had gotten for dirt cheap right when the Gamecube came out, we didn't have any game consoles. Then, my elder brother bought a GBASP off of a friend, and started rooting around for good games for it. Three guesses as to what turned up. He got Sacred Stones not long after,... and proceeded to play the heck out of it, with me attentively looking over his shoulder. There was one thing he did (or more like didn't do) that always bothered me... he didn't reset when units died, and didn't give a damn about their lives in the first place. Later on he got Shadow Dragon when it first came out, and the above ensued all over again. Except this time, he'd deliberately sacrifice Abel (after I said I liked him) in the prologue. But enough about my brother. It was spring 2012, and my family was moving. I wanted a good game for the trip, and lo and behold, I re-discovered this series. I went for Shadow Dragon and played the life out of it over the trip and the summer; I'd basically got the thing worked out to a science. Not long after I completed it, I got Sacred Stones... and proceeded to be less than impressed with it. I won't rant on about it, as there are others who have already done so, and I share similiar views. Then, I discovered that there was a Fire Emblem game for 3DS... that was already released in Japan and coming to the US in early 2013: Fire Emblem Kakusei (I still remember that Japanese title). I bought into the hype train (and upgraded to a 3DS)... and proceeded to get dissapointed. Once again, my less-than positive opinions on it have already been stated by many (though note that I don't HATE it, or believe that it single-handedly ruined the series; just that it made more bad choices than good ones). Robin was my #1 wanted newcomer in SSB4 (and you should've seen me when he was revealed). So, to this day, I've only played three Fire Emblem games, and I've enjoyed Shadow Dragon the most. I'm not in the postion to play the other games in the series, because my wii bricked itself + no good way to emulate + ridiculously high prices for all the games I haven't played (which was a factor in why I played those three games). Once I do get a decent PC, though, I'll definitely burn through this backlog. Apologies for the massive wall of text. I've got high-functioning autism/aspergers/whatever-the-crap-you-want-to-call-it, so expect more walls of text that over-analyze things. I've exhausted what I wanted to say right now. I look forward to being a part of this community.